Back it Up! A Dropbox Review

So—are things going any better for you today? Our Mischief Gremlin seems to be under
control (or at least tired) for now, and several things got fixed and/ or
started working themselves out. That
seems promising. I’m too superstitious
to say anything else about that. Here is a lovely photo of Jackson Pollock's backyard in the Hamptons to soothe you in case you are still experiencing mischief. I found it because I've been cleaning out computers for two straight days!

Sadly, my super-broken hard drive does not seem to have
survived yesterday. It’s bad if your
backup drive just makes a feeble “click, click click” sound and is not
recognized by any of your computers, right?.

That’s what I thought.

Luckily, last night I discovered that I never got around to
actually emptying the trash of my computer, so all of the files I had backed up
on that drive are in there. Now it’s
just a matter of going through all the recovered files, one by one, to
determine whether they are indeed backup-worthy, or are just ten year old crap
that would qualify me for an episode of “Information Hoarders!”

I will say, this backup drive meltdown has forced me into a
task that WAS on my to-do list, but that I was putting off, which was “go through
everything and back it up to Dropbox” as part of “OPERATION STREAMLINE EVERYTHING IN
2013.”

I know, I’m about to start sounding like I work for the
Dropbox Corporation, which I decidedly do not.
Since it is free (at the smaller levels) and awesome, I would like to
recommend that you start using it as well.
I like it when technology catches up to a need I actually have, so now I
am starting the process of consolidating files from multiple computers/
devices, using Dropbox as my catchall/ backup for everything. I was resisting this because I knew it was
going to be a super-huge undertaking, but it’s already saved me time twice
today, so I’m happy I’m doing it.

In case you don’t know about Dropbox, it’s a “cloud based”
file backup/ sharing program, meaning the files exist in your account in
cyberspace, not only on your physical computer. The good thing about this is that if your
computer (or backup drive) gets a virus or you get a Gremlin of Mischief and
Inconvenience, you can just laugh, shut that computer down, switch to another
computer, access your files on Dropbox, and continue on with your day. I must say, I wish I had done this
before. Already I have deleted a ton of
crap I thought I was saving for a “rainy day” that has just turned out to be
miscellaneous, now-outdated courses I already took, drafts of books I wrote
that have long been published, and other things that I just really, really did
not need to be saving. Did you ever
write something so bad you want to never see it again? I have.
And now these terrible things are being deleted so that no one will ever
see them.

This is the part where I urge you to back up your data,
because if you fail to plan, you plan to have an undignified, child-like meltdown
when all of your work disappears. So,
get a backup drive (that works), try out Dropbox, start using cloud-based
email—do whatever you have to do, but do something! You will thank me later.

Comments

Back it Up! A Dropbox Review

So—are things going any better for you today? Our Mischief Gremlin seems to be under
control (or at least tired) for now, and several things got fixed and/ or
started working themselves out. That
seems promising. I’m too superstitious
to say anything else about that. Here is a lovely photo of Jackson Pollock's backyard in the Hamptons to soothe you in case you are still experiencing mischief. I found it because I've been cleaning out computers for two straight days!

Sadly, my super-broken hard drive does not seem to have
survived yesterday. It’s bad if your
backup drive just makes a feeble “click, click click” sound and is not
recognized by any of your computers, right?.

That’s what I thought.

Luckily, last night I discovered that I never got around to
actually emptying the trash of my computer, so all of the files I had backed up
on that drive are in there. Now it’s
just a matter of going through all the recovered files, one by one, to
determine whether they are indeed backup-worthy, or are just ten year old crap
that would qualify me for an episode of “Information Hoarders!”

I will say, this backup drive meltdown has forced me into a
task that WAS on my to-do list, but that I was putting off, which was “go through
everything and back it up to Dropbox” as part of “OPERATION STREAMLINE EVERYTHING IN
2013.”

I know, I’m about to start sounding like I work for the
Dropbox Corporation, which I decidedly do not.
Since it is free (at the smaller levels) and awesome, I would like to
recommend that you start using it as well.
I like it when technology catches up to a need I actually have, so now I
am starting the process of consolidating files from multiple computers/
devices, using Dropbox as my catchall/ backup for everything. I was resisting this because I knew it was
going to be a super-huge undertaking, but it’s already saved me time twice
today, so I’m happy I’m doing it.

In case you don’t know about Dropbox, it’s a “cloud based”
file backup/ sharing program, meaning the files exist in your account in
cyberspace, not only on your physical computer. The good thing about this is that if your
computer (or backup drive) gets a virus or you get a Gremlin of Mischief and
Inconvenience, you can just laugh, shut that computer down, switch to another
computer, access your files on Dropbox, and continue on with your day. I must say, I wish I had done this
before. Already I have deleted a ton of
crap I thought I was saving for a “rainy day” that has just turned out to be
miscellaneous, now-outdated courses I already took, drafts of books I wrote
that have long been published, and other things that I just really, really did
not need to be saving. Did you ever
write something so bad you want to never see it again? I have.
And now these terrible things are being deleted so that no one will ever
see them.

This is the part where I urge you to back up your data,
because if you fail to plan, you plan to have an undignified, child-like meltdown
when all of your work disappears. So,
get a backup drive (that works), try out Dropbox, start using cloud-based
email—do whatever you have to do, but do something! You will thank me later.

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